


I Want My MTV

by ErinPtah



Series: Truthiness And Relative Dimensions In Space [5]
Category: Doctor Who, Fake News FPF
Genre: Face Slapping, Glittering Caves, Illustrated, M/M, Psychic Paper, Rescue Missions, Time Travel, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-30
Updated: 2008-11-17
Packaged: 2019-04-23 23:19:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14343066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinPtah/pseuds/ErinPtah
Summary: In the far future, Ten, Jack, and young Stephen explore the wonders of mysterious alien caves.Back in 1994, young-ish Jon Stewart is stalked by a loudmouthed coffee thief, a babe, and a guy with a completely unreasonable scarf.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Like all RTD's seasons of Who, this story has a Significant Arc Word, which appears in every individual serial. At the time this story was posted, readers had (incorrectly) guessed "large blue box", "beach", "color", "truth", "butterflies", "Starbucks", "Tolkien", "Helen Thomas", and "the Wørd."

**Another Damn Planet: 7032**  
_Stephen Col-bert is 17. Jack Harkness is not, in fact, older than sin, but it's only a matter of time._

"What do you do for a living, anyway?" asked Stephen. "When you're back on Earth, I mean."

They had landed on a planet whose surface, or at least this part of it, looked more or less like an abandoned rock quarry. ("Lots of planets look like abandoned rock quarries," the Doctor had said dismissively. "I give it ten minutes before we run into an evil plot of some sort.")

Half an hour later, they hadn't found anything but more rocks. (Although, as the Doctor had pointed out, some of them were awfully sinister-looking.)

"I work with Torchwood," replied Jack. "Don't look us up when you get home. We don't officially exist."

Stephen nearly fell off his rock. "There are secret societies? I _knew_ it! Are you like the Masons? Do you have a secret handshake? Do you control the world behind the scenes?"

"Even better," said Jack with a grin. "We hunt aliens."

It was hard to describe any of Torchwood's missions without including too many details that were classified, or just plain gory. But Jack told a generic story about weevil-hunting, and this went over so well that he moved on to the Cybermen, then switched tracks to explain how Gwen had infiltrated their top-secret base by pretending to be a pizza deliverywoman. Stephen hung on to every word.

Jack was in the middle of the story about how he and Ianto had caught the pterodactyl, which now hung around in the aforementioned top-secret base, when Stephen interrupted: "This Yan-to guy—is he . . . I mean, are you and he . . . y'know . . . ."

". . . together?" suggested Jack. "As of pretty recently—yeah."

"And you left him? To run off with the Doctor?"

Jack winced. "It's not like that! Besides, eventually the Doctor will drop me off at the point in time right after I left. As far as Ianto's concerned, it'll be like I was never gone."

"But _you'll_ know. Don't you miss him?"

"Of course I do. I miss my whole team. But it's not like I'm in danger of dying before I ever see them again."

"I guess," said Stephen.

"You don't sound convinced."

The boy kicked a pebble; it skittered across the ground, stirring up a fine trail of dust in its wake. "All I know is, if I had a . . ." He swallowed. ". . . a b-boyfriend, I'd never let him out of my sight."

⇔

**Chelonia: 13,694.**  
 _The Doctor is in his fourth incarnation. Sarah Jane Smith is 29. Stephen Colbert is 44._

Turning a corner on the garden path, Sarah Jane finally spotted Stephen, curled up in a curved stone bench under a bank of flowering trees. "There you are!"

"Oh, hey," said Stephen distractedly, his face turned towards the moon.

"We were wondering where you'd got to," Sarah Jane, settling in the bench next to him. The seats were molded to fit Chelonians, not humanoids, but they were surprisingly comfortable if you didn't worry about keeping your spine straight.

"It's not like anything would attack me on this planet. All the natives care about is flower arrangement. I did try to get a couple of them to see the merits of a strong national defense policy, and I think I was making some real progress when a big one showed up and dragged me away from the party."

"There's a surprise."

"I know! You would think a race of cybernetically enhanced turtles would be cooler. They aren't even ninjas!"

"I can see how that would be a disappointment," said Sarah Jane.

They sat in silence for a while. The sounds of the garden party in the distance, where the Doctor was doubtless getting into some kind of trouble, mingled with the sounds of alien insects chorusing in the trees.

"It looks like ours," remarked Stephen, half to himself.

"What, the party?"

"The moon. Doesn't it look like the one from Earth? Right size, right shape, right color. And there's only one of it. If you don't look at the patterns too closely, it's almost like you're home."

"Ready to go back, then?" teased Sarah Jane.

"What? No! No, not yet. Just . . . missing it a little, is all."

"Missing anyone in particular?"

"I am _not_ ," snapped Stephen, "and I don't know why you need to keep bringing it up. Just because of what happened on the psi-moon, you think I'm pining after Jon every time I look at the sky at night? Don't be ridiculous!"

"Actually, I was thinking of Lorraine."

"Who?"

". . . your wife?" Had she misremembered? He had only brought the woman up once or twice, and never for long. "Didn't you say her name was Lorraine?"

"Right! My wife! No, her name is, uh, Evelyn. If you'd said _that_ , I would have known who you were talking about right away! And yeah, I miss her terribly. Think about her every day."

"Your kids too, I guess?"

"My—? Oh! Sure, them too."

"I see," said Sarah Jane.

⇔

**Another Damn Planet: 7032**

"It works the same way with your family," Jack explained. "We'll put you back on Earth on the day we took you from, and they'll never know the difference. Even though I'm sure you miss them."

Stephen couldn't suppress a shudder.

"You'll have to go back pretty soon, too, or people will notice that you've grown overnight. And . . . come to think of it, we grabbed you from the middle of summer, right?"

"Almost the end. School was going to start in a week."

"You didn't have a tan, did you? Because if you did, it's long gone. We'll have to visit some beaches before you go back."

Stephen looked down at his pale arms. "Nah, this is pretty much normal. I spend most of my time inside."

"I see."

"Doing cool things, though!" insisted Stephen. "Like . . . watching MTV, and not returning phone calls!"

Jack raised his eyebrows.

"Well," said Stephen. "Technically, nobody calls me in the first place."

Jack nodded silently.

"Oh, all right!" cried Stephen. "I'm inside all the time because I'm playing D&D. You've dragged it out of me. Are you happy now?"

⇔

**The Vortex.**  
 _The Doctor is in his fourth incarnation. Sarah Jane Smith is 29. Stephen Colbert is 44._

"You think he's ready to go home?" asked the Doctor.

Stephen had eventually returned to the party, downed a few glasses of Chelonian wine, and had to be carried back to the TARDIS. (Sarah Jane was just thankful he hadn't been intercepted by another evil mastermind first.) They had all gotten a good night's sleep; he was presumably sleeping still, leaving Sarah Jane and the Doctor to work out where to go for breakfast in a console room that was quieter than it had been in several weeks.

"I don't think it's that bad," she replied. "It might even be just a bit of moodiness. Maybe he'll snap out of it on his own in a few days. I don't know. Whenever I think I've figured him out, he goes and does something completely unexpected."

"So he does."

"Kind of like you in that respect, really."

"Yes, he—I say, Sarah Jane!" exclaimed the Doctor, all wounded pride. "Did you just compare me to that—that _anti-intellectual_?"

"Did I? Can't think why. He's arrogant, self-important, eccentric, presumptuous, and generally oblivious to how other people feel. Or was that you?"

The Doctor's reply was cut off by a loud beeping from the console. He pressed a button, and the starry expanse on the wall screen was replaced with a field of scrolling numbers.

"What's going on, Doctor?"

"Distress call," replied the Doctor shortly. "Heavily encrypted. Can't tell offhand what species it's from, but—oh, Stephen's going to appreciate this."

"I do wish you'd stop being mysterious and—"

"It's coming from Earth."


	2. Chapter 2

**Earth: 1994.**   
_The Doctor is in his fourth incarnation. Sarah Jane Smith is 29. Stephen Colbert is 44._

"Are you sure this is Earth?" asked Sarah Jane, looking around at the hallway in which the TARDIS had materialized. "It's in awfully bad taste."

"They haven't quite shaken off the eighties yet, poor things," observed the Doctor, holding up a device that looked like the mutant offspring of a disemboweled radio and an old-fashioned movie projector. "According to this, we're almost on top of the distress call. Keep an eye out for anything that looks out of place."

"That's a pretty broad category. Those _curtains_ look out of place."

Stephen, behind them, didn't feel like keeping an eye out for anything. He had a pounding headache, and the terrible decor wasn't helping. (Windows with yellow shades, brown frames, and salmon curtains, next to blue doors and red-and-white walls? That would be painful to look at even _without_ a hangover.)

Then they passed an open doorway, and he saw the most glorious sight he could ever have hoped for. "Wait! Stop here!"

"Did you find the ship?" exclaimed the Doctor.

"Even better!" Stephen was already at the counter, tearing open the box. " _Instant coffee._ "

⇔

"Do you know," said Sarah Jane, "I think we're in a television studio."

She and the Doctor had left Stephen in the break room while they explored a bit further, and discovered an office (just as messy as the rest of the place) with a large bulletin board on one wall. _Guest - Cynthia Gibb_ , read one of the notecards tacked onto it. _No Money Playhouse Presents: Bad Wolf_ , said another.

"That's interesting," replied the Doctor absently, turning in circles as he studied his hastily-rigged scanner.

The desk in the office was a mess, covered with everything from mundane stacks of paper to such oddities as a Rubik's cube and a pile of PEZ dispensers. A pad of stationary caught Sarah Jane's eye.

"What _is_ the matter with this thing?" demanded the Doctor, hitting the scanner with the heel of his hand. It let out a mechanical squeal of protest. "It seems to think we're right on top of the signal!"

Could that be the show's logo on top of the pad? It was upside-down, but when Sarah Jane tilted her head, she could see—

A yelp echoed from down the hall.

⇔

"What are you doing here?" demanded the man who had just entered the break room. He wore a ridiculously loud floral shirt, and his brown hair was wild and frizzy even though the hairline had receded nearly to the top of his head, but his expression of disbelief was nothing Stephen hadn't seen before.

"I'm having coffee! What does it look like?" demanded Stephen. The buzz was kicking in, his dulled neurons finally firing to life. He had no time for stupid questions!

"How did you get in?" exclaimed the man. "No, it doesn't matter. Get out of the studio, or I'm calling security."

"Hello there!" interrupted the Doctor, appearing in the doorway behind him. "So sorry to startle you like this. I'm the Doctor, and these are my friends. You've already met Stephen, I see. This one is Sarah Jane. Have a jelly baby."

The man with the loud shirt took the candy, but stared at it as if he weren't quite sure what to do with it.

Some meeting or other must have ended, because the commotion in the hallway increased throughout the conversation, and then there were two more people in the doorway. "Hey there," said a woman with grey hair and a sweater tied around her waist. "Friends of yours, Howard?"

"I don't know them!" stammered the man. "That one's stealing our coffee!"

A handful of new people joined them. It was a veritable crowd now.

"No harm done," insisted the Doctor. "Jelly babies all around, then? I hope I have enough."

"It's just coffee," protested Stephen, ignoring the dirty looks from the assembled. "It's not like I took your lunch! By the way, do you have any lunch you could share? I'm so hungry, I could eat—"

"Hey, guys, what's going on here?" said a voice from the back of the crowd. Its owner couldn't be seen over the heads of the rest, but every other person automatically moved aside, letting the speaker step through: an unassuming figure in a black shirt and acid-washed jeans.

Stephen started so violently that his coffee splashed across the floor.

"— _Jon?_ "

⇔

**Another Damn Planet: 7032**

"Jack! Stephen!" The Doctor, who had been out of sight among the rocks for some time, was now scrambling across the landscape towards them, jumping nimbly among the boulders like a two-legged mountain goat. "Come on!"

Stephen jumped to his feet. "What is it? Did you find any evil plotting aliens?"

"Almost as good! I found a cave!"

"A cave," repeated Stephen flatly.

"What's wrong with caves?" demanded the Doctor, somewhat affronted. "There's loads of interesting stuff in caves! We could find mines, monsters, secret underground bases. Think of the possibilities!"

"We could also find more rocks," pointed out Stephen.

"You're welcome to stay here, if you like," said the Doctor. "Come on, Jack."

Jack was about to agree—it was almost reflexive—when he noticed Stephen's expression. "Thanks for the offer," he said, "but if you don't mind, I'm gonna stay with Stephen."

Now the Doctor just looked taken aback.

"Oh," he said presently. "Well. All right. I'll just be off exploring the cave, then. If you're sure?"

Jack nodded.

"Right. Stay out of trouble, you two. See you in a bit!"

⇔

**Earth: 1994.**  
 _The Doctor is in his fourth incarnation. Sarah Jane Smith is 29. Stephen Colbert is 44. Jon Stewart is 31._

"'Jon'?" repeated Sarah Jane, looking from the newly coffee-stained Stephen to the diminutive man with his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Of course. The half-glimpsed name on the upside-down logo. "Is this your Jon Stewart?"

"He's definitely _the_ Jon Stewart, at any rate," confirmed the Doctor. "Jelly baby?"

"Can't accept food that's not factory-sealed," said Jon apologetically, holding up a hand. To Stephen he added, "So, I take it you're a fan?"

This finally snapped Stephen out of his deer-in-headlights stare. "'Fan'?" he exclaimed. "Don't be ridiculous! Your stupid faux-trendy not-funny talk show with the guests no one else will take and the set that looks like it was designed by a colorblind schizophrenic? I wouldn't watch this trash if you _paid_ me!"

⇔

". . . and stay out!"

"Oh, well done, Stephen!" muttered Sarah Jane as she stumbled out onto the concrete. "How many establishments is that you've gotten us thrown out of? Sixteen, eighteen? I've lost count."

"I don't understand!"

"What is there not to understand? You talk to someone like that, they don't want you in their studio!"

"But it was _Jon!_ " wailed Stephen. "He knows I don't mean it!"

"You can't—"

"Sh-sh-sh-sh!" hissed the Doctor, waving the argument into silence. He was looking up, and Sarah Jane reluctantly followed his gaze. Then she did a double-take as her eyes reached the roof.

"That is some _really_ screwed-up architecture," said Stephen faintly.

"Only by Earth standards," the Doctor corrected him. "No wonder the scanner thought we were right on top of the ship. It was on top of _us_."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty much all my knowledge of the Jon Stewart Show comes from the fabulous [JSS Ultimate Guide](http://www.geocities.ws/jonstewartshow/jonmultimedia.htm).
> 
> (By the way: three cheers for President-elect Arthur Winters! Too bad Harry Saxon's gonna be shooting him in a month or two...)

**Another Damn Planet: 7032**

Stephen sank back onto his rock, looking at Jack in awe.

He had stayed.

The Doctor had asked him to go somewhere, and had _stayed_. With _Stephen_.

For his own part, Jack seemed lost in thought. It was a few moments before he noticed Stephen at all; when he realized he was being stared at, he did a double-take. "You okay?"

"Fine!" insisted Stephen, shaking himself. "Fine. Never better!"

The sun climbed higher in the sky.

⇔

**Earth: 1994.**

Stephen followed the Doctor and Sarah Jane up the fire escape, not really looking at them.

Jon had thrown him out.

He had yelled at Jon, the way he always did, and Jon had _thrown him out_. Sure, the Jon in this year had never met Stephen before, but _still_.

 _It's his own fault,_ Stephen told himself. _He had the nerve to suggest that I was a 'fan' of his. He should have known better._

The sun sank below the horizon.

⇔

**Another Damn Planet: 7032**

Privately, Jack was as surprised with himself as Stephen was. If you had told him a few months ago that he would ever refuse to follow the Doctor somewhere, he would have laughed in your face.

Stephen kicked his heels against the side of the rock. A few flakes of shale chipped off and clattered to the ground.

"Is this place really called 'another damn planet'?" he asked after a bit.

"Yeah. Grade school kids love learning about it because it gives them an excuse to swear, and their teachers can't tell them off. Not that I speak from experience or anything."

"How come? How did it get that name, I mean?"

"I think the species that found it was really sick of discovering planets."

"How can you get bored with _discovering planets?_ It's cooler than—than—than _Tolkien!_ "

Jack looked around. "I'm pretty sure Tolkien wrote about a lot of places that were more interesting than this particular planet."

Stephen sighed. "Okay, yeah. Unless those are _really_ cool caves."

They sat in silence for a time.

"So what's Ianto's job at Torchwood?" asked Stephen a little later.

"He's our general support officer."

"What does that mean?"

"He makes coffee."

"Oh."

The silence resumed.

⇔

**Earth: 1994.**

A call from production interrupted the post-show meeting. Elyse took it, leaving Jon's mind free to wander.

Jon understood enthusiastic fans. He had even more of them since moving to syndication, and he couldn't imagine ever getting tired of them. He understood hecklers: he'd had his share of those too. And of course he understood break-ins. He lived in New York.

But why would someone break into a studio and only steal coffee? Not because he was looking to yell at the host. He had recognized Jon, but the outburst had seemed like an afterthought.

("What'd they delete?" Elyse was asking on the phone. "'Hand' or 'job'?")

He'd been way too unprofessional to be a higher-up, suit or no suit—but did he know Jon from somewhere else? _That_ would be a jackass move, running into a guy you'd met at a party or whatever and asking if he was 'a fan.'

Jon racked his brain, to no avail. If they had met, he had been in one of those states of mind where you say a lot, remember none of it, and wake up in the next state wearing somebody else's pants.

"We're taking 'hand' out," announced Elyse, hanging up.

Eh. Might as well forget about it and move on to the important things in life.

"What was her reason?" asked Jon. "Was it the hand movement?"

Besides, he'd probably never see the guy again.

⇔

The spaceship was about the size of a compact house, its outer shell reddish and patterned like the brick of the building on which it sat. "Primitive chameleon technology," observed the Doctor as he walked around it, wielding his sonic screwdriver like a dowsing rod. "Ah! Here's the door."

"How can you tell?" asked Sarah Jane, a few steps behind. "Did you use some kind of ultrasonic signal that changed in pitch when you passed over an entrance?"

"No, just found the knob."

"Oh."

As the Doctor tucked his improvised scanner under one arm (its little spinning wheel clicking loudly in futile protest) to aim the screwdriver with both hands, Sarah Jane glanced back at Stephen. He hadn't said a word of complaint during the whole climb, which was a pretty fair indicator that something was wrong.

To her relief, he wasn't staring up at the nearly-full moon. To her dismay, he was instead standing by the edge of the roof, looking over. She stepped over to his side.

"Come on, Stephen," she urged, touching his sleeve. "We've got work to do."

Stephen jumped. "I'm not waiting for Jon to come out!" he exclaimed.

"I'm sure. Look, the Doctor's got the door open. Let's go save some aliens, okay?"

⇔

**Another Damn Planet: 7032**

"This would be a good time for a surprise alien attack," said Stephen out loud.

He looked around expectantly.

Nothing happened.

⇔

**Earth: 1994.**

"I really wasn't watching for Jon," insisted Stephen as they walked through the narrow halls of the spaceship.

"Of course you weren't," said the Doctor.

"He probably won't leave for a while anyway. He'll spend a couple more hours working with the writers. That's the kind of person Jon is. He doesn't understand how to speak from the gut."

For some reason it seemed very important that the Doctor and Sarah Jane not get the wrong idea about Jon. They had only seen him for a few minutes! What right did they have to judge?

"And he might not leave through the main door. He might sneak out the back somewhere. He does that sometimes, because fans wait around hoping to meet him after tapings, and he's a liberal elitist who thinks he's too good for them."

Okay, that didn't sound good. _Think, Col-bert. You put up with the man for a reason._

"But he can be nice when you get to know him," he continued. "If you can get him to admit he's wrong, he apologizes. And he always drops everything when I tell him there's an emergency, even when I'm just testing to make sure he's still there. And, well, it was inevitable that I would get a show someday, but he sorta kinda maybe in a teeny tiny way helped me along."

"Stop!"

"I will _not_ stop!" snapped Stephen. "People should know the truth about Jon. He deserves it. And don't you point that thing at me!" He grabbed the laser pistol from the alien's scaly claws, tossed it aside. "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to point a weapon when someone's talking?"

The others gaped at him. "I don't believe it," breathed the Doctor.

"I know!" huffed Stephen. "The nerve of some people!"

⇔

**Another Damn Planet: 7032**

"Jack? How do you think the Doctor's doing?"

"Oh, he's probably fine."

"I'm not so sure. He might be in real trouble. He might have . . . fallen and broken his leg, or something."

Jack started to catch on. "Maybe you're right. Do you think we should go and check on him?"

Stephen jumped eagerly to his feet. "I think it's a moral obligation."

⇔

**Earth: 1994.**

They stood, facing off, in the rather grubby hallway: Stephen, Sarah Jane, and the Doctor in front of the suddenly-disarmed and very surprised-looking bald green alien.

"Dude, you're not a cop, are you?" said the alien, staring at Stephen with huge black eyes. "Because we totally did not mean to land on an F-class planet. We were driving along, minding our own business, when our generator just went foom. Could you, like, find it in your hearts to let us off with a warning?"

"'F-class'?" repeated Stephen incredulously. "How dare your society give my planet an F? Where do you get the balls? Or whatever it is your species has instead of balls."

"Wait—you're natives?" exclaimed the alien. "Radical! We, like, come in peace."

"Yes, thank you, that's lovely," interrupted the Doctor. "But this planet isn't due to make first contact for a few decades yet, so I'm afraid you'll have to leave as soon as we fix your ship."

"Uh, that might be a little tricky. Hey, are _you_ a cop?"

"No, I'm the Doctor. And a part-time mechanic. Why would it be tricky?"

"Well, see," said the alien, shuffling a little, "the other guys, they got hungry, you know? So they went off to find some munchies, sample the local cuisine and all, and maybe kinda sorta blow a couple of things up on the way. Just for kicks!"


	4. Chapter 4

**Another Damn Planet: 7032**

The cave entrance was easy enough to find: a long, narrow cleft in the rock, more than high enough to walk comfortably as far as could be seen, though the interior shaded off rapidly into darkness.

"I've got a light in here somewhere," said Jack, rummaging in his pockets. A moment later he pulled out a something like a miniature flashlight and aimed its dim yellow beam at the cave floor. "There we go. Watch your step."

"Will do," said Stephen, trying not to think about orcs.

The mouth of the cave was still large and bright behind them when he heard the noise. "Jack! I think someone's in here!"

Jack took a step closer, and Stephen leaned cautiously against his side. "Yeah, I hear something. But I don't think it's a person."

He swung the flashlight across the dark spaces in front of them, until it met something that glittered and flashed in response. "Aha! A stream!"

"Is that good?" asked Stephen, who was now not-thinking about Gollum.

"You bet it's good. If we follow the water down into the cave, we'll know exactly how to get back. And if the Doctor did the same thing, which he probably did, we'll find him along the way."

⇔

**Earth: 1994.**

" _This_ is where they are?" demanded Stephen.

The Doctor fiddled with his scanner, twisting a dial that Sarah Jane could've sworn hadn't been there before. It hummed cheerily at him. "Picking up signs of technology of the same sort that was in that spaceship. They're in here, all right."

"Impossible," protested Stephen. "This place never would've let them in."

After climbing down from the studio roof, they had spent a while walking the streets of New York City. Sarah Jane was a little afraid they would be mugged, but the Doctor's aura of confidence, not to mention just-this-side-of-sanity, put off any would-be attackers. They had finally come to a stop before a restaurant, set in the first story of a skyscraper whose sleek architecture simply _oozed_ class.

"Their friend said they're using personal chameleon units," the Doctor pointed out. "All they would have to do is look up the appearances of contemporary celebrities."

"Those sound useful," said Sarah Jane. "Do we have anything like that?"

"Oh, not at all."

"Well, maybe it's for the best. I don't think they'd be inclined to serve a couple of talking phone booths."

"Better talking phone booths than you two," pointed out Stephen. "At least I'm wearing a suit! The staff is going to take one look at that scarf and laugh you back out on the street."

"Not if they think we're important enough," countered the Doctor.

"And how are we going to convince them of that? If we'd landed ten years later, I could get you in, but right now these poor fools haven't even _heard_ of me yet."

Waving his companions closer, the Doctor dug through his pockets. "It's going to take some concentration on your part, Stephen," he whispered, pulling out the leather bus pass holder and flipping it open. "This thing's still responding to the papilløn, which in turn responds to what you're thinking. You see?"

Sarah Jane leaned in. Sure enough, the slightly psychic paper read _I Can't Believe We're Chasing Alien Stoners._

"I can use it to bluff my way into that restaurant, but only if it isn't contaminated by outside forces. Which means you must keep your mind completely blank."

 _That Won't Be Hard,_ snarked the Wørd.

"You too," said the Doctor sternly. "As blank as you can, given that you're a wholly mental being in the first place."

_Yes, Mother._

"Good! Let's give it a test run." He closed the bus pass holder and straightened up. "Ready?"

Mouth pressed into a firm line, Stephen looked straight ahead into the distance. His entire body stiffened; the only motion he allowed himself was a short, curt nod.

"Right." The Doctor aimed the paper just at Sarah Jane, flipped it open again. "Nice to meet you. I'm Detective Sherlock Holmes."

 _And I'm The Queen Of Egypt,_ said the paper.

Sarah Jane shook her head at the other two. "No good."

"You distracted me," sulked Stephen. "I was caught off guard. Say something realistic next time."

⇔

A waiter accosted them within thirty seconds after they walked in the door.

"Excuse me, sir? May I help you with something?"

They had practiced with the psychic paper for a quarter of an hour, after agreeing that it should appear to be a wildly extravagant credit card.

"Yes indeed!" exclaimed the Doctor. "A table for three, my good man."

Credit cards were easy for Stephen to picture. He had quite a few, and he spent a lot of time lovingly studying them.

"I'm afraid sir must be lost. This establishment does not serve—"

Stephen let his vision drift out of focus. _Credit card. Think credit card._

"Oh, no, this is definitely the place. Isn't our money good here?"

_Seal in the corner. Little swirls around the edges. Shimmer. Lots of shimmer. Rainbow reflections when the light hits it just right._

"I do apologize," said the waiter, his dignity not wavering. "Table for three, did you—"

_Shiny stamped numerals . . . printed block letters . . . Jon?_

"—dear me, what's that?"

Quick as blinking, the Doctor flipped the case shut. "Latest in hologram technology," he said. "Security purposes. I'm sure you understand. Three, please."

⇔

If this wasn't the best day of Jon's life, it had to at least be in the top ten.

He had been excited enough just to have Tarantino on the show. ( _The_ Tarantino. Quentin _Reservoir_ -freakin'- _Dogs_ Tarantino.) And now they were having dinner together. Technically it was for work—he was supposed to be writing an article about this—but a meal was a meal, and the man _was_ single. (Hey, a guy can dream, right?)

The food was probably excellent, but Jon hardly noticed. Even the miniature pink umbrellas in the drinks barely registered. As for the random break-in from after the show, that had been completely forgotten.

And then _they_ walked in the door.

Jon sank down a little in his seat; Tarantino noticed. "Hey, you okay?"

"Yeah, fine. Saw someone I recognized, that's all. Keep talking!"

He tried to pay attention, but his eyes kept flicking to the new arrivals. It was them, all right. The coffee thief, the babe, and the guy with the unmistakable crazy scarf.

Flick. Now the waiter was leading them in this direction. Coffee Thief was definitely trying not to look in Jon's direction.

Flick. They had stopped moving, were having a whispered conversation.

Flick. The Babe had broken from the group and was heading towards his table.

And then she was next to them. "Excuse me, sorry to interrupt . . . ."

Tarantino broke off mid-sentence, smiled appreciatively at her. "Well, hello."

She returned him a charming, if somewhat toothy, smile before turning to Jon. "I just want to apologize for the way my cousin's been acting. He's a little . . ." She touched her head meaningfully, then went on in her charming British lilt. "You understand. Completely harmless, though, I promise. We'll try to keep him out of your way from now on."

"Thanks," said Jon warily.

Crazy Scarf was a few steps behind The Babe now, and Coffee Thief with him, stealing awkward glances at Jon. At least he wasn't yelling this time. Although, come to think of it . . .

"Hey, if you're her cousin, how come you don't have an accent?"

Coffee Thief's head jerked sharply towards him, fixing him with an intense, dark-eyed stare. "It was beaten out of me at a young age."

His tone was so perfectly deadpan that Jon was a little shaken.

 _Lunatic, remember?_ he told himself. _Might not even know what he's saying._

And then, just like that, the stare was broken as Coffee Thief noticed the other man at the table. "Hey, you're Quentin Tarantino!"

"Uh, that's right," said Tarantino, a little nervously.

Coffee Thief grinned. "I'm a huge fan. I loved _Kill Bill_."

"Kill who?"

Crazy Scarf coughed loudly. "Well, I think that's quite enough of that!" he said. "We've got to be off. Lovely to meet you both!" With that, he all but dragged Coffee Thief away.

⇔

"I think that went well, don't you?" said the Doctor brightly, as they finally settled down at their table.

Sarah Jane sighed. "I think it went down like a ton of bricks. How about you, Stephen?"

"I think everything here is un-American," replied Stephen, who had turned his entire formidable focus on the food selection. "No hot dogs, no apple pie, no South Carolina peaches, just dishes with freaky Italian names that nobody can pronounce."

"That's probably because it's an Italian restaurant."

"That's no excuse. You think these gastroelitists could be coerced into making a ham salad?"

"I think they would make anyone a salad," said the Doctor sincerely.

When Stephen finally got it, he glowered over the top of his menu.

"Gentlemen, please," protested Sarah Jane. "We still have a couple of alien hoodlums to track down, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah," agreed Stephen. "Look, you guys order for me, okay? I've gotta run to the Jon."

He half rose, then paused when he caught the look on Sarah Jane's face. "That's 'the loo' to you people."

 _Oh. Of course. The john._ "Right."

It was a few minutes before she noticed that Jon, too, had left his table. By that point there wasn't time to do anything about it before the explosions started.


	5. Chapter 5

**Another Damn Planet: 7032**

Stephen couldn't remember the last time he had been carried piggyback.

Not that he _needed_ to be carried, of course! He could walk fine on his own! It was just that the rock walls on either side of them had nearly closed in for a while, so that instead of walking alongside the stream they had had to walk in it. And sure, it was only ankle-deep, but no sense in ruining both of their shoes, right?

Now that the path had widened again, he had every intention of getting down. Eventually.

It wasn't just the elbow room that had widened, either. Stephen was no expert on caves, and Jack's light didn't go far, but there was a growing sense of _space_ around them. Something about the currents in the air, the echoes of Jack's footfalls.

And was that a point of light in the distance?

Stephen squinted. Definitely a light: tiny, blue, and bobbing up and down a little. Like the point of the sonic screwdriver.

"Doctor?" he called nervously, leaning forward on Jack's shoulders.

His voice echoed and rang among the folds of the rock.

"Stephen! Jack!" came the cheerful reply, copied and distorted and bounced back in a hundred variations. "Oh, I'm glad you came. Have you _seen_ this chamber? No, of course you wouldn't have done. You've only got that tiny little lamp. Hang on, I'll turn this thing up to eleven."

A moment later the tip of the screwdriver had lit up like a star, filling the cavern with brilliant blue-white light.

⇔

**Earth: 1994.**

Jon pushed open the stall door, walked towards the overly elaborate sinks, and found Coffee Thief studying himself in the mirror.

Maybe, just this once, he could skip washing his hands.

He hesitated a moment too long: Coffee Thief spotted him. "It's okay, it's okay!" the strange man said quickly. "I'm not here to yell. I just want to . . . to a-apologize."

 _Humor the lunatic,_ thought Jon. _You can get a restraining order later._ "Is that so?"

"Yeah. I . . . I really do like your show. I just don't want people to know. Because it's embarrassing."

He looked genuinely sheepish (and not about to pull a knife or anything), so Jon relaxed a little. "You're not exactly in our target demographic."

"Well, yeah. And then there's the part where you're a fanatic hippie liberal who loves attacking America."

Jon blinked. "Me? Listen, uh . . ."

He paused for Coffee Thief to fill in a name, but the man just raised expectant eyebrows, waiting for him to continue.

"Listen," he repeated, "you're the kind of person who takes everything really seriously, aren't you? Emotionally invested in everything? Angry most of the time?"

"Maybe," Coffee Thief huffed.

"Well, I'm not. I really don't care about this kind of stuff. I don't know where you got the idea that I'm some big political activist guy. I've been to, like, three protests in my life . . ."

"A pro-choice rally, an anti-Persian-Gulf-war protest with like ten people, and a riot after the Rodney King verdict," recited Coffee Thief. Like he knew them by heart.

Jon stared. "You've seen my standup."

"Um . . ."

"How long have you been following me?"

"I haven't! It's in your HBO special!"

"I've never done an HBO special!" Jon took a few steps back. "Listen, I'm gonna go back to my table now, and if you try to talk to me again I'm calling the police. Got it?"

Before Coffee Thief could reply, there was a sound like a crack of lightning from the direction of the main room, followed by a small explosion.

"Jesus Christ!" yelped Jon. "What was _that?_ "

"Probably the aliens," said Coffee Thief matter-of-factly.

⇔

Stephen brushed past Jon and stepped cautiously out the door.

The restrooms were set in a long hallway, with the restaurant at one end and a door marked Employees Only at the other. It was impossible to tell what was going on out in the main dining room, but as Stephen edged down the corridor another _zap_ rang out, followed by the crash of breaking china.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Jon emerge from the restroom behind him.

Jon, who didn't have an HBO special, who wouldn't get one until after _The Jon Stewart Show_ crashed and burned. _Shouldn't have mentioned that._ Jon, who was here with Quentin Tarantino, having dinner. _But not like a date or anything. Even though Jon's single. Is Tarantino married? How should I know?_ Tarantino, who hadn't even _started_ on _Kill Bill_. _Shouldn't have mentioned that, either._

The Doctor had started talking on the other side of the door, the words too muffled to make out but the tone clear and authoritative. There was another small explosion, and he broke off.

This was followed by a deep, guttural, inhuman guffaw.

Just in front of the door, Stephen froze. (He was _not_ scared. He was just . . . strategizing. That was all.) In that moment Jon slipped past him, pulled the door open a crack, and glanced out.

He jumped back almost immediately. "They're _green!_ " he hissed.

"Well, yeah!" snapped Stephen in an exasperated whisper. "I told you they were aliens, remember?"

⇔

The Doctor ducked back behind the overturned table, where Sarah Jane was still stomping out the flame from the candle that had fallen. "I think I'm getting through to them."

"Where on Earth would you get an idea like that?"

"Well, maybe not quite yet," the Doctor admitted. "I'll give it another go. Oh, do stop screaming!"

He shouted this last bit. The general din of the room quieted a little, although someone was still sobbing in a corner.

"Much better." The Doctor stuck his head up over the rim of the table. "Now, see here—"

There was another electric crackle, and he ducked, the top of his absurdly large hair smoking a little.

"Dude," guffawed one of the deep and raspy alien voices, "it's so cool to watch them squirm."

⇔

"There's only three of them," muttered Stephen, one eye peeking through a crack in the door. "All facing away from us. And they seem kind of like idiots."

"H-how can you tell?" stammered Jon.

"Haven't you been listening to them?"

"Wait, can you understand them?"

"Of course," began Stephen, then realized that the TARDIS' translation function must not be universal. Otherwise all of NYC would have run surprisingly smoothly for the past few hours. "Just trust me. They're interstellar morons. I bet we could sneak up behind them—I'd signal to the Doctor to be extra-distracting—and brain them all with chairs before they realized what was going on."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Count me out of this."

Stephen looked back at Jon in shock. "Aren't you going to help?"

"I'm not part of the space police. It isn't my job."

"It isn't mine either!" exclaimed Stephen. "But they've got ray guns! They could kill people!"

"All the more reason to sneak out the back before they get you."

"But—!" Stephen found himself inexplicably on the verge of tears. "The explosions—we don't know how much power they have—they could blow up the whole building—with people still inside!"

"And I don't want to be one of 'em!"

The utter lack of empathy in his eyes was tearing at something in Stephen's heart. And then, all at once, he understood.

_You're pre-9/11._

_Oh, God, you're young and you're stupid and you believe something like this wouldn't affect you. And I know better, even the young and stupid people in my time know better, but there's no way I can tell you why._

By this point Jon was halfway down the hall.

"Wait!" cried Stephen, jogging after him.

Jon turned. "Are you coming?"

Stephen backhanded him across the face.

  
  
  
  



	6. Chapter 6

**Earth: 1994.**

Sarah Jane sniffed the air. "Do you smell smoke?"

"Not now, Sarah," said the Doctor, fiddling with his sonic screwdriver. "I'm sure this thing has a disable-ray-guns setting . . . aha!" Raising his voice to address the aliens on the other side of the table, he added, "I would think you'd be more polite to someone who fixed your ship!"

There was a pause, then a confused alien voice. "Dude, your planet does _not_ have the tech for that."

"Well, I'm not from this planet, am I?" asked the Doctor, raising his head just a little ways above the table edge. This time, he didn't get shot at.

"You totally look like a native," said one of the aliens. "Are you bluffing?"

"Bluffing? Me? Of course I'm not bluffing! Sarah Jane, am I bluffing?"

"He's not bluffing," called Sarah Jane. Yes, that was definitely smoke in the air. And to her left there was a set of shadows that danced on the wall, as though cast by a light source that flickered.

"No, I'm definitely an alien here," continued the Doctor, raising his hands slowly. "After all, if I were a human, could I do . . . _this?_ "

The aliens (the non-Doctor aliens, that is) let out shouts of dismay. These stopped after a moment when they realized that the sonic screwdriver hadn't shot anything, at which point they started guffawing again. "He's totally bluffing!" laughed one. "We are _so_ taking this place over."

Sarah Jane peeked at an angle around the side of the table. Diners crouched in similar predicaments all around the room, with the addition of little flames cropping up on the carpets. As she watched, one flame trickled over to a tablecloth, and shot up it like, well, wildfire.

There was a woman behind this table, in a red cocktail dress. She let out a little shriek and sprang for the next one.

"Hey-o!" exclaimed one of the aliens, pointing his gun at her and pulling the trigger.

The weapon clicked uselessly at him.

"Whoa, man, it's jammed!" cried the green man in dismay.

Then he collapsed, as Stephen broke a chair over his head.

⇔

Okay, so there was a tiny flaw in Stephen's plan. Namely, the fact that while one of the would-be invaders had gone down, and gone down hard, he was now facing two others with nothing but a couple of splintery chair legs.

"N-now see here," he stammered, trying to look more impressive than he felt. "I'm putting you under Citizen's Arrest—for destruction of property—assault with a deadly weapon—intent to overthrow the government—and—and—"

"Dude!" interrupted one of the aliens, grabbing him around the neck and lifting him into the air. "Didn't your mama ever teach you not to sneak up on people?"

"Gack," Stephen replied wisely.

He meant to say something like "Let's get out of here, before we all burn to death." There were at least three fires in his field of vision now. Whether they had been started by candles or alien gunfire, he didn't know.

Somewhere above them, a smoke alarm finally began to go off.

The aliens looked up in confusion, which seemed to be their default setting. Between the noise and the wriggling captive Stephen, they were distracted enough not to notice Sarah Jane sneaking up behind them, wielding yet another chair.

⇔

"All right!" shouted the Doctor over the crackling flames. "There won't be any more shooting. Everybody out!"

Sarah Jane chimed in. "You heard the man. Please move toward the exits in an orderly fashion!"

They kept alternating voices as the diners moved towards the door, and there was hardly any panicking at all.

The Doctor had hooked one of the aliens under its brawny arms and was dragging it towards the exit, so Sarah Jane did the same with another. Stephen grabbed the third, but reluctantly. "How come we're saving these guys? They tried to kill us!"

"I hope you're not suggesting we sink to their level!" exclaimed the Doctor, adjusting the sonic screwdriver one-handed. The tip glowed blue, and then with a slight shimmer the green faces were replaced with almost impossibly beautiful human features in natural shades of brown. "Oh, good, I didn't fry their chameleon units. Come on!"

⇔

By the time the trio reached the front door, burdens in tow, the room had emptied of diners and the smoke was thick in the air. A siren began to wail in the distance.

"Doctor," said Stephen, coughing, "do we have to drag them all the way back to their ship? Now that they look like humans, can't we just take their guns and dump them somewhere?"

"Certainly not!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Don't tell me you're—"

He broke off sharply, and held up a hand for silence.

A moment later they all heard it: "H-hello? Somebody? Help!"

"Someone's still in there!" exclaimed Sarah Jane.

"You two, get these gentlemen out of here," said the Doctor, dropping his alien and taking a step towards the fire.

Stephen grabbed the collar of his coat and dragged him back. "Not in _that_ scarf, you don't!"

And he sprinted back into the room. Quickly, so he wouldn't have time to come to his senses.

⇔

Following his voice, Stephen eventually found Tarantino.

The man was under a table, pinned, as the flames licked closer. A patch of hair over his left ear was singed and frazzled, not from the fire, but from the ray gun beam that had stunned him as it went by. "Hi," he said dreamily.

"Hey there," said Stephen, shoving the table aside. "Get up!"

They stumbled back the way he had come: Tarantino swaying dizzily, Stephen half-dragging him forward. Had the room been this big before? Impossible to tell how far they had come, couldn't see five feet now through the smoke . . .

. . . and then there was a hiss and a whoosh and the blaze reared back, split by a jet of white foam.

"Are you coming?" yelled Jon over the roar.

⇔

They stumbled out into the street just as the fire trucks pulled up. A cheer went up from the crowd of gawkers.

As the firefighters charged in, hoses unrolling behind them, one paused next to the trio. "That was brave," she said. "Reckless, but brave. Make sure you stop by the ambulance, get those burns checked out."

"It's okay," said Coffee Thief. "We're with a doctor."

⇔

**Another Damn Planet: 7032**

Stephen gaped.

Scrambling down off of Jack's back, he took a few running steps forward, then came to a stop and simply turned around in place, staring openmouthed at the scene around him.

None of the bland grey stones of the planet surface, this! The rock formations around them, towering several stories high, were fine and detailed and full of color. Veins of ore glittered in the walls, and the small stream fed into a vast network of pools in which their reflections also shone.

"There are columns of white and saffron and dawn-rose," said Stephen, almost to himself, "fluted and twisted into dreamlike forms."

"What's that?" asked the Doctor, joining him.

Stephen looked warily at him for a moment, then took a deep breath and continued. "They spring up from many-colored floors to meet the glistening pendants of the roof: wings, ropes, curtains fine as frozen clouds; spears, banners, pinnacles of suspended palaces! Still lakes mirror them: a glimmering world looks up from dark pools covered with clear glass; cities . . . cities stretch on through avenues and pillared courts, and . . . and . . ."

He trailed off, memory failing him.

"That's beautiful," said Jack quietly.

"It's Tolkien," replied Stephen. That ought to be enough explanation for anyone. "Hey, Doctor? If, hypothetically speaking, you wanted to change a planet's name, how would you go about that?"

The Doctor tapped his chin with the tip of the sonic screwdriver, throwing the shadows behind him into a chaotic frenzy. "I suppose you'd have to start by figuring out what you wanted the new name to be."

"Aglarond," said Stephen firmly.

The Doctor grinned. "The Sindarin name for the Glittering Caves, behind Helm's Deep."

"Exactly."

"You _are_ a geek."

Stephen folded his arms. "Yes, I am. You got a problem with that?"

⇔

**Earth: 1994.**

Together they hauled the camouflaged aliens back to the studio: Coffee Thief, Crazy Scarf (revealed to be _Doctor_ Crazy Scarf), and The Babe each carrying one piggyback. It turned out they weren't stalkers at all: they had shown up at his building because there was a spaceship parked on the roof. Who knew.

Jon offered to help with the carrying early on, but as he had already had to pull out his inhaler several times, he was left with the duty of guiding the still-dazed Tarantino. Once inside the building, they found the director a couch, onto which he gratefully collapsed.

The still-unconscious aliens was barely starting to stir when they were finally deposited back in their ship.

("And don't come back!" Coffee Thief ordered. "No loser deadbeat green guys are going to zap their way into invading _our_ planet. I mean, if you disguised as humans, infiltrated our political system, and subtly engineered its downfall—no, wait, make it our financial system, everyone cares about money— _then_ you might have a chance! But a couple of hoodlums like you could never pull that off. Now, uh, what did you say your name was? Gorlock? Okay, Gorlock, take your friends and beat it.")

All too soon the mysterious alien-hunters were standing in front of their blue box (which Jon assumed was some kind of teleportation module), shaking Jon's hand and saying their goodbyes.

"You really were fantastic, young man," said Doctor Crazy Scarf, grinning in a cheerful if surprisingly toothy way. "I have a feeling you'll go far. Come along, you two." He beckoned to the others; Coffee Thief hesitated.

"Come on, Doctor," said The Babe, taking his arm. "Let's give these two a minute."

"All right." Doctor Crazy Scarf tapped Coffee Thief on the shoulder. "Don't do anything stupid, you hear?"

They stepped into the box and closed the door.

⇔

Jon spoke first. "Thanks," he said quietly. "For saving my guest. And, y'know, my planet."

"No big deal," said Stephen, trying to sound as though he saved planets every day before breakfast. More softly, he added, "You saved my life too."

"But you weren't expecting it. You ran into the fire to save a stranger, not knowing whether anyone would come after you," pointed out Jon.

(Stephen hadn't been talking about the fire. He let it pass.)

"I mean, I didn't exactly give you any reason to believe I'd come back."

"Why'd you do it? Especially after . . . you know." Stephen waved his hand in a weakly mimed slap.

Jon smiled his adorable embarrassed half-smile. "That was kinda why. I had some sense knocked into me. A guy's gotta care about something enough to risk his life for it, right?"

"I guess."

"What about you?" Jon took a step closer. "Do you have someone to care about?"

"I . . . I have tons of fans," Stephen stammered. "Friends! I meant friends. Though I have fans, too."

A small shake of the head. "Not what I was asking."

Stephen froze.

Jon's voice was low; his lips curved into a slow, inviting smile; his whole body less than three feet away. Stephen had a single heart-stopping moment to take this all in before his mind shot off in two directions at once.

 _Don't you dare, Col-bert!_ shouted one part. _He's a married man! At least, he will be! You could change the whole course of his life, and he likes the one he's got! You have no right. Don't you dare!_

 _Oh, God, take him now,_ panted the other, just as loudly. _He's young and hot and single and offering! Grab him, kiss him, pin him to the wall, rip off those stupid acid-wash jeans. You'll probably never get a chance like this again!_

Jon brushed a bit of soot from Stephen's lapel, let his hand rest on the fabric. "You okay?"

"I—I have to go," choked Stephen. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

And he bolted for the TARDIS door.

**Author's Note:**

> See also: Serial 5 [deleted scenes](http://reseda.dreamwidth.org/23933.html) and [cameos/references](http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=26759&chapter=7).


End file.
